Freefall
by thespeedfxrce
Summary: It's dishonorable to aim for a seeker before the snitch has been located. It's Quidditch Etiquette, but that doesn't mean it never happens.


This story was written for the Seventh Round of the Seventh Season of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition. I'm writing as the Seeker for the Tutshill Tornados.

My task this round is as follows:

SEEKER: Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes: Write about someone getting injured

Disclaimer: I don't own any part of the world J.K. Rowling has created. It's all hers, from Diagon Alley to Hogwarts to all the people living there.

Thanks to my team for betaing!

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Freefall  
Word Count: 1002

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Viktor Krum has three distinct bumps in his nose. One he has had since birth, two he acquired from accidents on the quidditch pitch. They are the only physical flaws that can be found on the International Quidditch Star's handsome face. _Witch Weekly_ named it "a masterpiece: a face where brooding and prowess come together in perfect harmony." But Viktor never paid attention to the British rag of a tabloid, not since it had hurt Hermione during the Triwizard Cup.

Hundreds of feet in the air, Viktor watches his teammates race around the pitch. Weaving around their opponents at breakneck speeds, Viktor is happy for his perfect sight, otherwise, he would see nothing but colorful blurs. The Canadian Seeker, Maxwell Schafer, sways back and forth impatiently. He's new to the Toronto Tornados, older than Viktor when he first started playing Quidditch, but still young. In interviews, it's clear he is cocky. Schafer is often compared to Viktor in the tabloids, and the young seeker is desperate to fly from beneath Viktor's shadow, as he views the veteran Quidditch player as old and washed up.

Viktor smiles. It will be satisfying to beat him, even if he is a little green.

They are now thirty minutes into the game, and still the snitch has evaded both seekers. Both have yet to spot it, and Viktor is starting to think this may be a long game. Still, he waits patiently as his opponent grows ansty.

Viktor watches the field, coaching his teammates as well as keeping a sharp eye out for the real prize. Searching for a glimpse of the elusive gold, the flutter of a delicate wing.

It's 30-50, advantage to the Toronto Tornadoes. This doesn't worry Viktor, not yet, not so early on in the game. He has faith in his team. As he thinks this, Clara Ivonovna, one of their chasers and a former player on the Bulgarian National Team as well, scores again. Bringing the game within a margin of ten points.

It's tight, the tension in the air is heavy. This isn't Viktor's first close game, and it won't be his last, but it doesn't seem to ever get easier to watch his team fight for points while he watches from afar. It's fifty minutes into the game, but he won't allow himself to _sweat it_, as the Canadians would say.

He wonders if maybe he is getting old. Just shy of thirty, he isn't old by most standards, but most people aren't professional Quidditch players. A glance at the other seeker helps to quickly relieve his anxiety. If this confident, to the point of cockiness, young player hasn't spotted the golden snitch yet, then Viktor hasn't lost his touch either. He pulls his attention away from the other players and concentrates on his goal. He has one job, it is in his best interest to not mess it up.

He isn't watching the other team when it happens.

It's dishonorable to aim for a seeker before the snitch has been located. It's Quidditch Etiquette, but that doesn't mean it never happens. Viktor doesn't have any time to react to the bludger that is sent careening his way by Atticus Tall, the burly beater for the Tornadoes. Cheers ring out from the Tornadoes stands, boos and heckles rising from his own supporters.

Tall's aim is true and Viktor hardly has time to turn his head before his gloved hands slip from the safety of his Nimbus X-20 and he starts spiraling down towards the grassy field below. Sky and brightly coloured supporters flash by as he falls. It's oddly surreal. The pain, when it happens, is explosive, but, as the ground finally catches up to him, his landing is soft, either his fall was slowed in midair or someone charmed the hard earth below him into an uncharacteristically soft landing spot. Possibly both.

He quickly realizes that the left side of his face is, at least partially, caved in. He can only see out of one eye.

Fingers probe at his face, opening his good eye for him and shining a light inside. He flinches as the invasive hands check his left side. Nothing.

What does it mean?

They are talking to him. "_Krum? Can you hear me? Can you tell me where you are?_"

_Yes. We're in Canada. At the Northern American Quidditch Championships. I'm laying in the grass you ruddy idiot. __**Let me up**__. _But his mouth can't seem to form the words without a blinding pain shooting across his face.

"May have broken his jaw, too." That voice belongs to his coach, Constantine Volkov. He curses colorfully in Bulgarian.

Viktor's English is good, superb really from his year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. With Hermione Granger's guidance, he excelled in his speech and understanding to the point of near fluency, but in his current mental state, he starts to have trouble discerning words and their meanings and the translations begin to jumble in his head.

His good eye can't focus as they lift him onto a stretcher and he watches the pitch fade away as he is taken off the field. He is not as vain as some tabloids make him out to be, but he can't help but wonder what he looks like as the world falls into darkness.

The Sofia Sorcerers, Bulgaria's most celebrated Quidditch team, doesn't catch the snitch that match. After Viktor is carted off the field, his team wipes out the Toronto Tornados with a vengeance. Even with Schafer's catch, the Canadian team loses 280 to 200.

Viktor's eye and jaw heals, but the facial fractures in his eye socket alters his look and his brow now appears to sit lower on his left side than his right. Not enough to make him hideous, but enough to be noticed.

International Quidditch Star, Viktor Krum now has three bumps on his nose and one dent in his brow, the years spent on the pitch marking his otherwise handsome face.


End file.
